The present disclosure relates to a technique for converting data, and more specifically to a technique for converting a rule (a match condition) into entry data to store the rule into an associative memory.
An associative memory (CAM: Content Addressable Memory) where a high-speed search operation can be performed is generally known. A search device using an associative memory is used for a router and a network switch, and an increase of the number of entries that store search data words (capacity enlargement of CAM) is required.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,656,716 (Patent Document 1) discloses a regular expression search engine that searches for a character string in accordance with a regular expression by using an associative memory. More specifically, the search engine is configured to determine a complexity level of an inputted regular expression and store the regular expression into one CAM device selected according to the complexity.